All of the energy of the big reveal was out of the building by the middle of the first half. Purdue lowered the curtain prior to the game to reveal the most recent B1G Championship banner in the rafters of Mackey Arena. J promptly peed in my Cheerios- 24 Conference Championships are nice, but Purdue was 1.9 seconds from having a much nicer banner in the rafters of Mackey, he reminded me. sigh

Still, it’s worth celebrating. But after watching this year’s Boilers play for a few minutes, it was pretty easy to notice that Cline and Boogie were nowhere to be found on the court…neither was Sasha, but we’ll talk about that in a minute. Purdue shot the ball really badly in the first half. In spite of that, Purdue had a comfortable double digit lead at the half, mostly thanks to Matt Haarms. At the half he had a few blocks, 11 points (I believe) and three rebounds…in the second half, he flexed out a bit.

Proctor, Hunter and Wheeler were all shooting blanks from deep in the first half, but Haarms hit a shot from deep, and Purdue was simply better than the visiting Phoenix from the magical land of Wisconsin.

Sasha Stefanovic didn’t dress due to a foot injury (early indication is that he’ll be a gametime decision this weekend v. Texas). AND, we heard right before tip-off via Chris Forman on Twitter, that Gillis and Newman would both be redshirting.

So when Eastern was taken up the tunnel after a non-contact re-injury to his shooting hand, Purdue had quickly gone from guard rich, to desperate…AND not having both Sasha and Eastern, in particular, is really tough medicine for this Purdue team to swallow.

Passing wasn’t crisp, movement without the ball was inconsistent and shooting was flat-out poor, especially in the first 25-30 minutes of the game. While Purdue lead, it just wasn’t that fun to watch. But then, a block party broke out…and Purdue found some rhythm.

Haarms began doing what he does, and a bit of a snowball effect occurred. The energy was palpable as he swatted shot after shot after shot...

Eastern came back in the game, after taping up his hand…and the game got pretty chippy as the Linc Darner-coached WGB team took the fight to the physically-minded Boilers. My favorite moment of the game came in this stanza. After attempting to draw a charge, one of the Phoenix’s players was called for his second flop. A new NCAA point of emphasis is calling the flop (sorry Dukies)…this was his second, so he was issued a technical. In the same 3-5 minute period, another Wisconsin Green Bay player was whistled for a tech for shoving Eastern prior to the inbounds play.

The infractions took a somewhat close nine point lead and pushed it out to around 20 points. As Wisconsin Green Bay attempted to stay physical with Purdue, Eastern was knocked down on his bad hand/wrist and left the game. He never returned.

With Eastern out, Thompson filled in at point guard and Proctor took the game over. The High Point transfer finished with 26 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals, with just 1 turnover…damned solid night. He shot 11-17, and didn’t really force the issue by continuing to shoot from deep, but instead took it at the middle of the defense, and good things happened.

Hunter, while not shooting well, finished with 15 points and 6 assists. He tried to get the deep ball going, as I wrote above, but never got warm- he ended up shooting 1-5 from deep. His pal Aaron (Wheeler) almost grabbed a double-double and ended with 10 point and 9 rebounds…but once again, shot it poorly (2-5 from three).

Haarms 16 points, 7 blocks, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists was fun to watch…but it’s especially fun when a dude who is 2.21 meters tall (that’s for you, Matty) is bombing threes. He was 2-2 from deep.

This Purdue team is going to need to shoot MUCH better if they’re going to flirt with the top third of the conference…but as the double secret scrimmage versus Providence reminds us, this team will have bad nights and is a work in progress.

Purdue’s 65% from the FT can easily be improved…and must be, honestly. But WGB’s 44% is flat out lousy and kept them from keeping this game very close. It never felt like it was in doubt, in spite of Purdue’s injury bug and shooting woes.

Paint has plenty of things that he can point out for his squad to work on and get better at before they welcome Texas to Mackey at 7:00p on Saturday night. Sadly, coach can do little about getting Nojel and Sasha healthy any quicker than nature allows…and that could prove costly against a team as good as Texas, even at home.

Texas is 1-0 after beating Northern Colorado handily and EsPN’s predictor machine thinks Purdue will win…but real life is different than simulators as J knows too well. Tune into FS1 for the contest.